US warned Chile dictator over plebiscite

SANTIAGO, Chile—Newly declassified U.S. documents indicate that Chilean dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet planned to use violence to annul the referendum that ended his brutal regime.

The formerly secret documents posted by the independent U.S. National Security Archive on Friday showed U.S. officials warning Chilean leaders against violence if Pinochet tried to use force to stay in power if people voted against eight more years of his rule.

They also show U.S. officials and agencies backed the anti-Pinochet campaign portrayed in the Oscar-nominated film "No," even though the U.S. government also had tried to undermine the socialist government Pinochet had overthrown.

The documents also portray Pinochet as furious after the vote results, saying he pleaded with his generals to let him use extraordinary powers to crush dissent.

4. After fifteen years of soul-crushing dictatorship, the U.S. felt confident

that the people of Chile would never again disobey their Yanqui masters by voting for someone like Allende-especially since it was clear that any post-Pinochet settlement would involve the acceptance of the notion that the military now had an absolute right to overthrow a civilian democratic government that dared to show actual economic and social independence from what was now called "The Washington Consensus"-that is, an enforced agreement that austerity, inequality and a harsh form of market economics would remain in place no matter what party won the "elections".